As Heche was beginning to establish herself in movies during the late 1990s, her career was negatively affected[3] by her highly publicized same-sex relationship with Ellen DeGeneres. This resulted in Heche losing movie offers.[4]

Anne Heche's same-sex relationship with comedienne Ellen DeGeneres and the events following their breakup became subjects of widespread media interest.[5][6] The couple started dating in 1997. At one point, they said they would get a civil union if it became legal in Vermont. They broke up in August 2000.[7] Heche has said that all of her other relationships have been with men.

After the split, Heche began dating cameraman Coleman 'Coley' Laffoon. They married on September 1, 2001. Their son, Homer, was born on March 2, 2002. Laffoon filed for divorce on February 2, 2007.[8] Heche lost custody of their son in June 2007.[9]

Sources say Heche left her husband for Men in Trees co-star James Tupper.[10] The couple reportedly moved in together in August 2007.[11] On December 5, 2008, it was confirmed by Heche's representative that the actress was pregnant with Tupper's child.[12] Their son, Atlas Heche Tupper, was born on March 8, 2009.[13]

Heche is the youngest of five, but her sister Abigail is her only surviving sibling. Her sister Cynthia died of a heart defect in infancy. Her father Donald died of AIDS aged 45 in March 1983. Her brother Nathan died in a car crash aged 18 in June 1983. Her sister, Susan Bergman, died aged 48 in January 2006.[14] Heche and her mother, Nancy, have been estranged ever since Heche confronted her about the sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of her father.[15] Since her husband's death from AIDS, Nancy Heche has been a Christian therapist and motivational speaker. She lectures on behalf of James Dobson's Focus on the Family about "overcoming" homosexuality.

On August 19, 2000, Heche drove from Los Angeles to Cantua Creek, a rural area outside Fresno, California. She parked her Toyota SUV along a dusty roadside. Wearing only a bra and shorts, Heche walked 1½ miles through the desert before knocking on the door of a stranger's ranch house. When the home's resident, Araceli Campiz, opened the door, she knew Heche from the movie Six Days Seven Nights. Bemused at first, Campiz grew uneasy when Heche showed no sign of leaving. "I didn't know what to do," Campiz said. "So I called the sheriff's department." When deputies arrived, Heche told them that she was "God, and was going to take everyone back to heaven in a spaceship," according to a police report that was aired on NBC. The deputies called an ambulance. Heche went 50 miles to Fresno's University Medical Center, from which she was released after a few hours.[16]

Heche says that she was insane for the first 31 years of her life. She said this was due to the trauma of being sexually abusedby her father during her infancy and childhood.[17][18] As a result of this trauma, Heche also says she had multiple personality disorder. She made an alter ego named "Celestia," an alien from another planet who could speak to God and was the half-sister of Jesus Christ.[19] Heche said that the incident in Cantua Creek snapped her out of her insanity and put her alter ego behind her.[15]